The Sardonyx Net Part 4

They still looked alike. But we are different, too, Rhani thought. We grew apart in the years we lived apart.

"It's good to have you home," she said.

He grinned. "Absence makes the spice. I brought you a present."

"A star to hang on my wall," Rhani teased. Zed often brought her trinkets made on the other sector worlds.

"Not a star. A Starcaptain."

Rhani rubbed her chin. She had no Starcaptain friends, but perhaps Zed had, a friendship formed during his pilot's training on Nexus: someone he'd liked, and met by chance, and invited home. But Zed never invited strangers to their home. "Who?"

"No one you know. He was on his way to Abanat to make contact with a drug smuggler. It's a complicated story; he's a smuggler himself, new to the dorazine market, and another smuggler got in ahead of him and jacked his cargo."

"And with the Hype cops blanketing the sector, he chose to come to Abanat anyway?" Rhani said.

"Yes." Zed stretched, arms reaching for the ceiling. "It was that -- audacity -- that drew him to my attention."

Rhani scratched her chin. "He sounds interesting," she said. "I don't suppose he knows the location of The Pharmacy."

"No," Zed said regretfully. "Runners don't know that."

"Dealers don't. And we poor buyers don't." She rose, pacing a little. "I thought Hypers didn't talk to strangers."

Zed half-smiled. "We aren't precisely strangers."

"Is he a friend of yours? Someone you knew on Nexus?" Rhani turned to face her brother. She was intrigued: the only Hyper Zed ever brought home -- besides the Skellian, Jo Leiakanawa -- was Tam Orion, chief pilot at Abanat's Main Landingport. But though she loved to hear discussion of other worlds, other systems, the Hype, she hadn't from him, because Tam Orion never talked. "I've never met a Starcaptain. What's his name?"

"Dana Ikoro." Zed smiled oddly. "He's not a Starcaptain precisely, either, Rhani-ka, not now. He's a slave."

"What?"

"I bought him for you."

"Bought me a slave? Zed-ka, what am I going to do with him?" Rhani scowled at her brother. "There's nothing for him to do here, and Hyper slaves are more trouble then they're worth. You have to put them on dorazine, and I hate that."

"You won't have to put this one on dorazine."

"Then he'll always be trying to escape."

Zed said, "This one won't." He sounded certain. The drowsing dragoncat rolled over on the rug. Zed leaned to rub the soft snowy fur on its belly.

Upside-down, it licked his hand. "Last time I was gone you complained when I came back because you had had to hire a pilot. He'll be your pilot. Or you can find him other work to do. He'll do what you tell him. He's a helpful man."

Rhani looked down into her wine gla.s.s. For an instant she saw, framed within it, Binkie's whitened face.

Zed said, "What did you write to Ferris Dur?"

"Huh," said Rhani. "I wrote nothing to Ferris Dur. He wrote again. I have the letter here. Why did you push all my papers on the floor?" She knelt on the rug, shuffling through the papers. The cat decided this was a game, and batted at her fingers. "Isis, stop that. Here." She read the letter aloud. It was much like the first but with more imperatives. It finished with a second demand for a meeting. "It arrived this morning. I haven't answered it. In two weeks I'll be in Abanat. If Ferris Dur wants to talk with me, he can come to my house." "He has no manners," said Zed, amused. Rhani crumpled the letter and threw it at him. He batted it away. The cat leaped after it, forepaws extended, pretending it was prey.

"Maybe he wants to buy into the kerit farm again."

"It might be nice to know," said Zed.

"You think I should go?" asked Rhani.

Zed shrugged. He ate a cracker. "I just think it might be nice to know what he thinks is so d.a.m.ned urgent." He finished his wine. "Come downstairs with me, Rhani-ka. I'll introduce your new slave to you."

Dana Ikoro sat in a chair against a wall, trying to stay awake.

Zed had said, "Sit here and don't sleep." They had ridden together in a two-person bubble from a small landingport in Abanat to a place that Zed said was the Yago estate. Zed flew the craft around a lightning storm. He small- talked: about the weather, the city, the estate; things of no consequence. He was easy and light-handed on the controls. Dana thought it, and as he did Zed glanced at him and said, "Say what you're thinking."

"I was thinking you're good at that."

"I was trained on Nexus. Thank you. You're probably better."

Dana's fingers went again to the plain blue letter "Y" tattooed on his left upper arm. It was the Yago crest: a badge of servitude. They'd put it on him after the trial, without hurting him. The ombudsman, a brisk woman, had talked to him about money, his legal status, and so on. He would be compensated, she told him, for time spent as a chattel. Money would be held in trust for him until his release. He could not be damaged, she said. This had made him smile.

He could not, except in certain circ.u.mstances, be killed.

The words made sense but the information did not: it seemed irrelevant.

When he walked from the room, the first thing he saw was Zed. They'd walked to a hangar and climbed into the bubble to come here. The house was white, with a flat roof covered with solar panels; he'd seen that from the air. The chair was wooden; its edge hurt the back of his knees. Zed had put him in it, and told him to stay awake, and then had drawn his finger along the line of Dana's jaw, saying, "Remember." He had walked into the garden.

Dana sat and shook on the embroidered cushion of the chair.

Zed and Rhani Yago came downstairs side by side.

Dana had expected something else in Rhani Yago: someone very old or very young, a freak, a monster. Rhani was her brother's height, and looked in the dim hall so like him that Dana wondered if they were twins. At Zed's gesture he stood up, swaying with weakness, and put out a hand to b.u.t.tress himself against the wall.

Zed said, "Rhani, this is Dana." He put an arm around her shoulders. "I'm going upstairs; I'll see you in the morning." They hugged; Zed went up the broad staircase without looking at Dana. His absence made it easier to breathe. Rhani Yago wore black pants and a red shirt; her eyes, like Zed's, were amber.

Dana bowed to her, awkwardly. He had never bowed before. She did not look monstrous. Wealth could buy longevity in the form of drugs; she could be any age, thirty or ninety or two hundred, but she looked ten years Dana's senior, no more.

"When did you eat last?" she said. She had a low voice, not unlike Zed's.

Dana tried to remember when he had last had a meal. "I don't know," he said.

"Stay here," she ordered, and vanished through a swinging door. Dana leaned on the wall, wondering how long he could stand before he fell over. All his bones hurt, and his knees wobbled.

Suddenly she was back with a tray: on it were a plate, a gla.s.s, and food.

He smelled meat and cheese and the aroma of fresh bread. "Sit down, man!" she said. "Here." He sat, and she laid the plate on his knees. His stomach rumbled.

He took a piece of meat. "Eat slowly, or you'll get sick," she warned him. He made himself take small bites. He ate two pieces of meat, a hunk of bread, a slab of cheese. Abruptly he could not eat any more.

She watched him eat, standing.

"Thank you," he said, adding, "I don't know what to call you, I'm sorry."

"You're welcome. My t.i.tle is Domna. But the folk of the house call me Rhani-ka. You may, too." She rubbed her chin. Her hair was longer and finer than her brother's, and she wore it pulled back from her face in a thick braid. He wondered if she were like her brother in other ways.

"How old are you?" she said.

"Twenty-four," he answered.

Surprise crossed her face. "Young to be a Starcaptain. How long have you had your medallion?"

The phrase hurt. "Eight months Standard," he said. And added, "I trained to be a pilot first."

"How long is your contract for?"

"Ten years," he said, What had Zed told her about him?

She glanced toward the swinging door. Dana looked, too. A shadowy figure stood there. "Amri -- if Binkie's awake, ask him to come here." The figure disappeared. Dana wondered who Binkie was, and if she/he were a slave, and if so, why Rhani Yago said "ask" of a slave. She had brought the food for him herself, too.

The door swung aside for a slender, fair-haired man. He looked curiously at Dana Ikoro.

"Binkie's my secretary. I couldn't do a thing without him. Bink, this is Dana. Zed brought him from the Net. Find him a bed and some clothes, and take some time tomorrow to show him the house."

"Yes, Rhani-ka," said Binkie. He beckoned to Dana. "Come with me." Dana stood up. His legs felt leaden. He bowed to Rhani Yago again. They went through the swinging door, into a metal-and-wood kitchen, and into a hall flanked with paneled doors. Dana was reminded of the Net.

"Cara," said Binkie. "Immeld. Me. Amri. Timithos sleeps in the garden.

You." He opened the fifth door.

Behind it was a room, small and warm, wood-paneled, lit by a line of soft paper lanterns strung across the ceiling. There was a narrow bed in a wooden frame, and a round mirror on the wall. Dana stared at himself. He looked older than his memory of himself, thinner, with lines on his face that he did not recall, and wary eyes.

Binkie said, "You sleep here. Amri will wake you in the morning. I'll tell her to call you late." He turned to leave.

"Wait -- please," said Dana. He felt lost. Binkie turned around. He gazed at Dana with sympathy mixed with a strange, tight defensiveness. "I don't -- are you a slave?"

Wordlessly Binkie pushed up his sleeve to exhibit the tattooed crest, the blue "Y," on his left upper arm.

"What did you do?"

Binkie said, "We don't ask. Slaves don't have pasts, or homes, or property. Or even their proper names."

"They say that, but you don't have to."

"What difference does it make? I could be an arsonist or an axe-murderer.

I'm here. I don't want to know what you are." He turned again to leave. Dana's legs would no longer keep him up. He sat on the bed. "Good night," said Binkie.

"Good night," Dana said to the other man's back.

He was alone.

He kicked off his shoes and pulled his feet up under him. The bed creaked as he shifted on it. He caught himself listening for footsteps.

_It's over. It's all right_. He leaned into the softness of the pillow and stroked his hand on the rich glowing grain of the headboard. He felt the soft fabric of the blanket. The hall outside was silent. He got off the bed and explored the room. It had a closet, empty, and a bathroom with a shower. He opened the door and looked out into the empty hall.

Night was the safe time, and Rhani had said he could sleep. He closed the door. He started to pull off his shirt, and stopped. He did not want to sleep naked. He took the blanket in both hands and wrapped it like a coc.o.o.n around him. The light control was on the headboard. He thumbed it. He curled on his side in the gracious darkness, listening to the steady music of his breath.

He waited for sleep.

Zed Yago spent his usual dreamless, untroubled night.

Waking, he lay motionless in the warm bed, watching the bright bands of sunlight climb the walls. The first few days off the Net everything on Chabad seemed transient, as if it might disappear when he took his eyes off it. He found himself staring at things and people, willing them to stay there. This room had been his place since childhood. His booktapes lined one wall. One closet held his clothes, and the other his ice climbing equipment: suit, hammers, axes, pitons. In one corner of the room was the wired human skeleton that he had used in medical school on Nexus; its skull was twisted to look sightlessly over one shoulder in a grotesque and impossible position. Zed guessed Amri had been cleaning it. His medic's case sat at its dangling, bony feet.

He swung out of bed and went naked to the doors of the terrace. He could see the blooming garden, misty with water arcing over it in hissing rainbows of spray. A dragoncat loped across a creeper. By a flower bed, Timithos coiled a hose. Zed pulled the gla.s.s door open. Heat poured through at him. The air was molten. Sweat p.r.i.c.kled on his shoulders and down his sides. After three months away from it, even for someone born and bred on Chabad, the heat took getting used to. Zed breathed deeply. He wondered if it would be a waste of time to mention the threatening letters to Rhani yet again. Perhaps he was being an alarmist. She would laugh at him. Finally, stepping back into the cool, quiet house, he slid the terrace doors closed. It was an hour after dawn.

He dressed. He could hear voices downstairs: Cara and Immeld, chatting in the kitchen. He started down the stairs and met Amri on her way up, tray with breakfast fruits in hand. "I'll take it," he said. Balancing it on one palm, he returned up the stairway and tapped at Rhani's door. "It's me," he said.

"Come in!"

She sat in the wing chair. He put the tray on the footstool. She wore a jumpsuit of deep metallic blue, the Yago crest color, the color of Chabad's sky.

It darkened the amber of her eyes to hazel. "Good morning, Rhani-ka."

She lifted her face up for his kiss. "Good morning, Zed-ka."

There were three printout sheets, covered with figures, at her feet.

"What are you working on?"

She took a piece of fruit from the tray. "Dorazine. Binkie computed for me this morning our storage figures and our demand figures: what we will need to supply the Net, the prisons of Sector Sardonyx, and our own workers at the kerit farm for one more year. We do not have enough. Look." Zed took the sheet she handed him. "I wrote to Sherrix days ago, the same day I sent you the communigram. I offered to pay double the current market price for dorazine, hoping to loosen the market."

"You told me that when I called you from the moon," said Zed. "That was also days ago."

"And I expected to have an answer from Sherrix by this time."

"You haven't."

She shook her head. "She's never not answered me before." Her shoulders hunched. "Write again," said Zed.

"Yes," she said almost absently. "I can do that."

Zed said, "What else is happening on Chabad besides a dorazine shortage?"

"Huh?"

"Marriages, births, deaths?"

She focused on him. "I'm sorry, Zed-ka. I was thinking ... and no matter how badly I've missed you, an hour after you come back from the Net, it feels as if you'd never been away. Deaths -- Domna Sam. And one of Imre and Aliza Kyneth's children almost married, but it didn't come off. I forget which one.

Imre was re-elected head of the Council. He suggested I do it but I said I wouldn't if it meant I had to live in Abanat. Imre and I had a fight about water rates. I won. Tuli opened a second shop." Zed nodded. Tuli had been cook on the Yago estate for three years: a silent, clever woman. When her contract expired, she took her money and bought a shop in Abanat.

"Were things well for you?" Zed asked.